The Teacher and The Student
by RenLissa
Summary: Sara's thoughts about her teacher and her student and about her being a student and a teacher herself.


_A/N: A little piece that came into my head the other night - I love Sara & Griss - but poor Greg, sometimes, I just, wonder. _

_Disclaimer: No, I don't own the characters - good thing too - the way my head has been lately I would fill the show with all the angst and soap opera drama that has been running through my head - got to keep banging my head against my desk - it's about the science, the cases, the wolds that exist around us. _

**The Teacher and The Student **

Sara Sidle was in trouble. She thought her life was finally making sense. That the pieces fit together perfectly. She finally had everything she ever wanted. At least everything she thought she wanted. But slowly, somehow, over the past few weeks, she had started to feel a little, unsettled. Actually it had probably been there for the past, well not seven years, but maybe the past two. She felt as if she just realized she was the coyote in one of those silly cartoons and she had made the mistake of looking down, and she had walked off the cliff a long time ago. Maybe two years ago? Why did her world always have to throw her curve balls just when she began to think she was going to get that home run and hit it out of the park?

A teacher is supposed to impart knowledge or skill, in this case about crime scenes and how to collect evidence. A teacher conditions the student's actions and mind. A good teacher would have self-reliant students. CSIs who could work on their own or be the primary CSI for a case would be the reflection of their instructor. A good teacher would lead by example, through how they processed a scene, and by experience, letting students do the work themselves. A good teacher would advocate the use of certain methods and tools over others. She had started out in Las Vegas as the student. Now she was the teacher.

Grissom had been more than a teacher; he had been a mentor, and a man that she fell in love with. Had he really been a good teacher? She wasn't sure; because of him she had tried to hard and pushed too far. She no longer ate meat. She was never going to have the evidence speak to her the way it did to him, but sometimes she would say something or do something and Nick or Warrick would give her a look. It's like they realized how much she had learned at the feet of Grissom. But how much was her trying to be a good CSI and how much was her trying to impress him? Did she want to catch the killers or show him that she could? If she were the best CSI she could be would that make him love her as much as she loved him?

Greg was her student, but he was also her friend. He had once joked about the student surpassing the master. He was closer to the truth than he knew. With age and experience, he would easily become the most successful member of the team, even the whole lab. He had this perfect combination of intelligence and compassion. He could be empathetic, but he could also be scientific. He would not max out on overtime, or try to survive on four hours sleep and vending machine cuisine. She wasn't sure she had been a good teacher. It was a lesson of what not to do by her example, rather than showing him how to behave as a CSI. Would it have been different if the team had been together? Would she have been a better teacher if she hadn't been occupied with her feelings for Grissom?

Too many questions and not enough answers. Some wise person would philosophize that the learning came from asking the questions. That there was more to the questions themselves than the answers. This is why she was a physics major and not a philosophy major.

So here she was, lost. Wondering about students and teachers and lessons and life until her head hurt. Usually when her mind worked overtime like this she could find something else to distract her. The problem was that she usually distracted herself with a romantic dinner with Grissom or a silly movie with Greg. Now either activity would have her more confused than she already was. Did she want to continue her relationship with the sexy, older entomologist who she worshipped or begin one with the hot, younger former DNA tech who viewed her as a queen? Should she go home and crawl into bed next to the familiar, the comfortable, and the dream that she had always wanted and fought for all these years? Should she stay at the lab, share jokes, laughter and flirty banter with the unknown factor?

She couldn't get the images of Greg laying on that cold pavement, bleeding, his eyes swollen shut, and his body broken. Now when she looked at him she could see there was a light missing from his eyes. In its place was a fear, a knowledge, and all she wanted to do was hold him until he smiled again. It wasn't like this after the lab explosion. She could still remember pulling her head up off the lab floor to see him lying there, just out of reach. What if he had been more seriously hurt, or what if it had been her who ended up in the hospital? Would she have asked Grissom out to dinner? Would she have spent the next couple of years trying to get Griss to figure out what to do about "this"?

Her head was still pounding. She was going to go out for drinks with Warrick and Nick and forget about this whole thing. At least for tonight.


End file.
